Sir, - One perhaps ought to be amused - but one isn't - at the petulant Fine Gael attack on Fr Joe McVeigh (July 20th). Fr McVeigh has been calling and working for negotiation and inclusiveness all his working life while Fine Gael was refusing even to talk to elected representatives of the people.
This spokesperson for Fine Gael is correct in saying that the Anglo-Irish Agreement and other measures brought about a new relationship between Ireland and Britain. Indeed they did, one of almost complete subservience. Mrs Thatcher rejected every one of the Irish people's suggestions in her famous "Out, Out, Out" speech. But the reason she was able to say "Out" to all the solutions proposed by an Irish forum was that Fine Gael had already arranged with her that she could. Then, when people were outraged and blamed Thatcher for this appalling arrogance, Fine Gael stood by and allowed the blame to fall on her when it should have been shared with the FitzGerald government.
Fine Gael managed to give everything away before even entering the negotiating room, a superb feat of forelock-touching. It also ensured minimum public discussion of our fate by developing the most severe censorship in Europe since the second World War. And to make matters even more secure for others and almost impossible for us, as we now know, Fine Gael members, including some of the most venerable of them, approved the beating up of prisoners by police. Perhaps the Fine Gael spokesperson is annoyed that Fr McVeigh dared protest against this?
In face of all this and much, much more, people in the north-east of this country have been working for real peace (not headbutting peace), recognition of rights and negotiation. Fr McVeigh has an honoured place among those who did so, in spite of what was done by some political parties here and their diplomatic representatives abroad.
If the Fine Gael representative wants to discuss these matters publicly or privately, including Fine Gael's decision to talk in secret to the Bilderberg and Tripartite commissions people while refusing to talk to their own people, he is welcome to come to Belfast and do it. Provided, of course, he refrains from the abusive and offensive accusations that people who disagree with him are "sneaking regarders", (whatever that lowlife expression means) coat turners and fools. A change of policy painful for him perhaps, but worthwhile for the rest of us.
One absolute condition of such a discussion would be abandonment of schoolyard abusiveness even if it seems to be an essential characteristic of the discourse of people of this kind. - Yours, etc.,
Desmond Wilson, Springhill Close, Belfast 12.